They have traced the base to the base's use by the CIA of the Shamsi airfield — originally built by Arab sheikhs for falconry expeditions in the SW province of Baluchistan — for at least a year. About 30 miles from the Afghan border, the strip allows US forces to launch a Drone within minutes of receiving actionable intelligence as well as allowing them to attack targets further afield. The Predator is said to have a range of more than 2,000 miles and can fly for 29 hours depending upon armaments, typically can carry four Hellfire missiles and two 500lb bombs, plus fuel load etc,Flight is controlled from CIA sites in the US who supplied this pic to us and may or may not be a pic of the Shamsi base.It was known that US special forces used Shamsi - also called Bardari (about 190 miles SW of the city of Quetta,) during the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, but the Pakistani Government declared publicly in 2006 that the Americans had left it and two other airbases. In January 2002, a US Marine KC130 tanker aircraft crashed close to its runway, killing seven Marines on board attempting a night landing in difficult conditions without night vision euipment.

The Times have now been able to show that the US Defence Energy Support Centre delivered 730,000 gallons of F34 aviation fuel (commonly JP8) to Shamsi on the website of the Pentagon’s fuel procurement agency. Delivery was made by a civilian supply company, Nordic Camp Supply (NCS), (Virkelyst 11 DK-9400 NØRRESUNDBY, Denmark www.dcsgroup.dk ) under a US $3.2 million, from Pakistan Refineries near Karachi.

It was of course Diane Feinstein the very powerful chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Feinstein is privy to classified details of U.S. counter-terrorism efforts who blew the whistle about the use of the (un-named by her) base. The LA Times report was published last week about her remarks to the Senate Intelligence Committee - evidently apart of the orchestrated manouevres over Pakistan / Afghanistan by Hellfire Holbrooke as he waved his big stick around on his trip to the region as O'Bombers new envoy / gauleiter.